This is story of our daughters Taylor and Lauren, both with profound hearing loss, and the journey of getting and utilizing cochlear implants. Both have congenital deafness due to the Connexin 26 gene mutation.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

LAUREN - One down, one to go!
It has already been 8 weeks since Lauren's activation. It has gone so smoothly. It has really felt very natural for her to begin listening. At first, I noticed her paying attention to our voices, our dog barking, etc. I noticed that if she heard someone laughing, she would turn and look and usually start laughing too. If she heard a sudden noise, she would look up and try to figure out what it was. One of the first big moments was about two weeks post-activation - I was rocking her to sleep for a nap while singing to her, and when I finished the song, she turned to look at me and see why I stopped. Such a simple thing, yet it spoke volumes to me. Gratitude fills my heart.

She is now saying Mmmmm when she wants me and it is getting closer to Maaama. I love it! She also makes a bbbb sound, aaahhh sound, and other imitations such as sneezes, coughs, etc. We are having a great time playing sound games with her. She thinks a lot of sounds are hilarious. I think she loves how her new "ear" helps her keep track of where her big brother and sister are and what they are up to.

We are using a headband with loops sewn in to keep the CI in place. Lauren can easily take it off though, so if she gets in that mood, we put a (Hanna Anderson) pilot cap on to limit her access to the ear. With baby eating, that usually means I am washing at least one, if not two, pilot caps each evening to have clean and ready to go for the next day.

Lauren started walking this week, so we are now trying to encourage her to take more steps and gain confidence with each day.

We have Lauren's right side surgery scheduled for August 7, with activation on August 28. She will have a nice bandage on her head for her 1st brithday, but we are so thankful that she is going to turn 1 with both cochlear implants surgeries completed and a lifetime of listening ahead of her.

TAYLOR - Amazingly Brave
Taylor is doing great! I will post a video soon of her. She is very into Barbie movies and loves to sing and dance along with the movies. She is now a super swimmer. We have perfected a waterproofing CI/swim cap method that allows her to keep an ear on to hear when she swims with us. Taylor started gymnastics last week... so far, we haven't had any retention issues because we are using the headband. If we do, I think I'll try using the swimcap to really hold the coils on well. Over the weekend, we went to Branson and to Silver Dollar City. Taylor and big brother Derek decided they are "big kids" and wanted to ride the big rides. She was tall enough with an adult, and rode the big roller coasters (PowderKeg), the log ride, another roller coaster, etc. You name it, they rode it. It was great fun for our family!